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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27418048">Courage a la Mode</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteSeahorse/pseuds/InfiniteSeahorse'>InfiniteSeahorse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda &amp; Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Injury, Fluff and Humor, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, M/M, Suspense</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:15:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,969</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27418048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteSeahorse/pseuds/InfiniteSeahorse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The one time Ravio leaves the house to do some shopping, Link finds a new way to get himself into trouble. Ravio overreacts in his typical fashion.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Link &amp; Ravio (Legend of Zelda), Link/Ravio (Legend of Zelda)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>84</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Courage a la Mode</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ravio stood at the base of the hill that lifted his shop above the surrounding countryside, taking a moment to readjust the armful of groceries he was carrying home from Kakariko Village before he ascended the rough dirt path to the front door. Glancing down at the ground, he noticed a bloodstained clod of earth next to his boot. He gasped in shock, then followed a trail of splattered red droplets along the path, running as fast as his overburdened arms allowed him to.</p><p>The merchant had gathered all of his courage to leave the house that morning, hoping to impress his roommate with a restocked pantry. He still wasn’t able to pay rent, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would be, but he thought grocery shopping counted as more than a mere gesture toward making up his debt.</p><p>In the short distance up the hill, past the garden, and to the front of the house, Ravio’s mind went wild, imagining all the countless ways Mr. Hero could have sustained an injury grave enough to paint the ground red with his life’s precious blood. He knew he should never have left the shop— it was too risky! But he had done it anyway, and now Mr. Hero’s death was on his hands.</p><p>Ravio had left Sheerow alone and in charge of the shop, with strict instructions to fetch him if Link arrived, and under no circumstances to let him leave without paying for any merchandise. However, he hadn’t said anything about notifying him if the hero came home with a mortal wound.</p><p>Standing before what was clearly a struggle —crimson handprint smeared across the door, deep furrows scraped into the dirt around the doorstep— the cowardly Lorulean was afraid of what he was about to face inside. His hand shook as he urged it to grab hold and turn the doorknob, but in his rising panic he found it difficult to coordinate his mind with his body. It suddenly occurred to him that whatever had fought with Mr. Hero might still be lurking nearby, waiting to sate its bloodlust with new, purple-robed prey. The sheer terror the thought injected into him propelled him through the doorway with superhuman speed, and before he knew it he was inside, leaning safely against the heavy wooden door with his eyes closed and the grocery bags clenched tight in his arms, as if they held the scraps of his insufficient courage.</p><p>After he had caught his breath, he shouted into the large open space of the front room. “Mr. Hero! Are you home? Can you hear me? Are you alright?” He turned to the side and dropped his bags, narrowly missing the table that sat by the entrance, and winced at the muffled crack of the sack hitting the ground. <em> Oh dear, not the Premium Milk, </em> he thought, then quickly shooed the unvoiced complaint away. This was no time to be distracted by trivial affairs, no matter how many rupees had gone into their purchase, or how much he was looking forward to tasting them. There were more pressing matters at hand, like determining how much <em> Mr. Hero </em> had cracked open and from where <em> he </em> was spilling precious fluids. Ravio’s voice was shrill and approaching a register only Sheerow could hear when he cried, “Mr. Hero! Answer me!”</p><p>There was no green-clad body lying on the rug. There was no heroic corpse slumped over a table. There were no puddles of blood on the floor, either, although Ravio found a very suspicious looking glob of what might have been flesh smeared across the rug. The sight of the glistening wad sent the frightened young man into a swoon, and he clutched his scarf as he doubled over, breathing heavily behind his hood. “Mr. Hero,” his volume dropped, the energy draining from his wavering voice as he called out again, “What happened to you?”</p><p>“Hmm?” A puzzled grunt came from the back of the house, and Ravio’s head snapped up at the sound, the ears of his hood whipping back from his face to clear his view. Link stood next to the fireplace with a strangely guilty smile stretched across a face that, while possessing the usual number of eyes, ears and teeth, was also marred by red and white streaks of some unknown substance.</p><p>No one spoke about the heroism of the gods. Legends were reserved for the mortals chosen in their stead to represent their ideals, persevering or perishing in pursuit of a lofty goal. Link was one of the chosen ones, distressingly mortal and unnervingly fragile in Ravio’s eyes. What was it he was training to be, what career was he interrupted from to save the day? It was blacksmithing, Ravio remembered. It was so easy to forget— the delicately built Hylian didn’t match the image of the typical burly, heavily muscled men of the profession, and his training hadn’t seemed to offer him much protection during his adventures. Ravio had seen him wield the first sword he’d carried, swinging it like that was the first day he’d ever gripped a hilt, and Link had confessed that it wasn’t even his own weapon and he’d only been allowed to use it after its owner had been magically transformed into a painting. Mr. Hero was a boy with few choices in life, and unlike Ravio, when fate’s whim had chosen him for a new role, he took it enthusiastically. His new job was giving him plenty of scars he hadn’t acquired during his old one, and Ravio’s critical eye scanned him from head to toe, looking for fresh injuries and thankfully finding nothing to give him further alarm.</p><p>Satisfied with his assessment, Ravio breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness you’re okay!”</p><p>“Of course I’m okay,” Link replied. He brushed a floppy lock of hair out of his eyes, and smeared another stripe of red across his eyebrow, which had tilted in puzzlement. “You’re the one who left the house without leaving a note. You could have been anywhere! And you know I don’t speak Sheerow-ese.” He gestured at the small blue and white bird that had rocketed its way across the house to nestle in a loop of Ravio’s scarf and chirp happily under his chin.</p><p>The merchant ignored the accusation. “Why didn’t you answer me when I came in? What have you been fighting? What are you doing now?” Link flinched from the rapid fire of questions erupting from Ravio’s mouth, but Ravio didn’t care. He needed answers, and he was going to keep asking until he got them.</p><p>“I’m a little busy right now,” Link said, waving at the hearth, where a covered skillet nestled in the coals, “and besides, you’re always so loud, I guess I’m starting to ignore it when you yell for me.”</p><p>Ravio huffed in exasperation, then shrugged it off. Mr. Hero’s uninjured, lively presence was starting to mollify his hysteria, and he took a larger, calming breath as he tapped his toes and waited for Link to speak again.</p><p>“Actually, I wasn’t fighting...I was running away.” He bit his lip and ducked his head before Ravio could get a good look at the blush creeping across his filth-encrusted cheeks.</p><p>“That doesn’t really explain what’s going on in here! Start at the beginning!” commanded Ravio. As his panic retreated and relaxed its choking grasp around his heart, his heartbeat began to slow to a reasonable tempo, and he no longer felt like he was going to faint or explode if he had to wait to hear Link’s explanation of what had put him in this mess.</p><p>“Okay, okay, just, um...” Link picked up a wooden spoon from the table he stood behind, looked at it like he was hoping it would speak for him, gave it a twirl when it remained silent, then put it back down. “I found a big patch of strawberries in the glade where Gulley and I used to play,” he began, speaking in a tone of voice he reserved for divulging embarrassing secrets. “I filled my bottles with them, had to let the fairies out of ‘em first. But the bottles were too small, and I knew I wouldn’t have enough berries unless I carried more in my arms, too.” Each sentence passed through Link’s lips with agonizing slowness, and it was all Ravio could do not to leap over the table and shake the story from the hero’s head. “I made it most of the way home just fine, sneaking around the trees, waiting for the soldiers to turn their backs to me before running for the next bush…” Ravio nodded. He knew about sneaking. It was his preferred way to go anywhere on his rare trips outside. “But I forgot about the soldier at the base of the hill. He saw me before I saw him, but I heard him clanking up behind me, and I ran for it.” Confession done, he turned away from Ravio and walked to a cupboard on the other side of the fireplace. As he stretched to reach a large bowl on the top shelf, Ravio noticed the cut, long but shallow, slicing across the back of his calf. The hem of his trouser leg was drenched in blood a shade or two darker than the stains smeared all over his tunic.</p><p>“Why didn’t you drop the berries and fight?” Ravio said, pleading for a lost cause.</p><p>“I thought I could get away safely, and I did!”</p><p>Pointing at the wound, he said, “No you didn’t! You’re bleeding!”  </p><p>“What?” Link twisted, following Ravio’s trembling finger to look at the back of his leg. The bowl slipped in his distracted grip and fell to the floor with a resounding crash. It didn’t break, but the sharp sound made the merchant jump and clutch at his scarf again. Sheerow squawked, annoyed at being jostled, and flew from his resting place with a burst of indignantly flapping wings. “I wanted a pie more than I wanted a battle. Priorities, right?” He tried flashing another smile at his housemate, but with the gore camouflaging his face, the effect was chilling rather than comforting. He scooped up the bowl and returned to the table, walking without a trace of a limp.</p><p>“A pie?” Ravio’s mouth dropped open beneath his hood. Braving so much danger for a simple dessert? He knew Mr. Hero had a reckless streak, but this took the cake, or rather, the pie. He took a few moments to look around the room, reinterpreting the surrounding chaos. The splashes and gobbets of red he had followed were the remains of crushed berries, not of the hero’s body, and the white patches on Mr. Hero’s face were puffs of flour, not skin paled by blood loss or lingering trauma. Ravio was too bewildered to feel ashamed for misreading the situation. Judging by the bowls, spoons, and containers strewn about the tables and floor, Mr. Hero <em> was </em> in the midst of a fight. His enemy was not a soldier, nor a monster, it was the pastry he had placed in the fire.</p><p>Gently, Ravio asked, “Do you know what you’re doing?” He didn’t want to insult the man who was letting him live and work in his house for free, but up until today he had never seen him do more than heat water for a cup of tea. The pantry was stocked with the basics, but as far as he knew, Mr. Hero subsided on a diet of potions and bar food.</p><p>“Yes!” Link replied with a defensive look in his eye. “I’ve never made a pie before, but I have a recipe —I mean, I <em> had </em> a recipe, I just saw it somewhere— maybe over here?” He swept a pile of berries aside and picked up a stained and tattered piece of paper. “It’s from the blacksmith’s wife. She makes one for me every year for my birthday. Sometimes strawberry, sometimes apple.”</p><p>“It’s your birthday?” Ravio gasped. “You shouldn’t be making your own birthday pie! Move over, Mr. Hero, and let me help!” He rounded the table, trying to shoo his housemate away with his flailing arms, but Link didn’t budge.</p><p>“No, no, no, it’s not my birthday, and I don’t need any help!” he replied, holding Ravio at bay with a firm, floury hand on each of his shoulders. “I know you know how to cook—” Out of necessity and invention, Ravio’s culinary skills were unsurpassed, “—but I want to try. A hero ought to be able to do anything he puts his mind to,” he added, like he was reciting from a rulebook.</p><p>Ravio brushed the handprints off his robe and sighed. “If you won’t let me help, at least allow me to put a bandage on that cut.” He crossed his arms and planted his legs, blocking Link’s access to the table. “I won’t move until I hear you say, ‘Yes, Ravio, thank you so much for your attentive care, you’re the best— oof!” Link had picked him up like he weighed no more than a handful of strawberries and deposited him several feet away from the work area. Ravio had no idea Mr. Hero’s slim body contained so much power, but then he saw the grimy glove he wore on one unwashed hand and realized he must have been aided by some magic-infused gear.</p><p>“Wait until I’m finished, then you can patch me up.”</p><p>Undeterred, Ravio said, “I’ll clean everything else, then.” He scanned the room for the third time. “Goddesses, what a mess! It looks like you cruised through here on the Tornado Rod!”</p><p>“I’m not going to stop making a mess until the pie is finished,” Link pointed out, and turned his attention to pulling the leaves off the berries. The berries he placed gently in a bowl while the leaves drifted to the floor.</p><p>“I have to do something! I can’t just watch— oh, I know!” Ravio hurried over to the front door and knelt by the sacks of groceries, searching through the items until he found what he had remembered. Fortunately, nothing had broken when the bags had hit the floor, and he brought out a small glass jar filled with cream. “Spare me a bowl and I’ll whip this cream to put on top of the pie!”</p><p>Link grinned, then glanced at his surroundings. “You’re on your own for the bowl. Whatever’s empty, you can have.”</p><p>Ravio trotted around the room, picking up a seemingly clean bowl off a chair and a whisk out of a large, otherwise empty container. He cleared a space on the opposite side of the table from Link and rolled up his sleeves, happy at last to feel useful.</p><p>An hour later, the house was clean and the pie was baked. The dishes and utensils had been washed and stored, the floor swept clear of detritus. A pot of jam was simmering over the fire, and Link, freshly scrubbed and bandaged, was beginning to cut generous slices from the whipped-cream covered pie for Ravio and himself.</p><p>Ravio accepted his plate with vocal thanks, tipped his hood up so he wouldn’t have to maneuver his fork around the oversized teeth jutting from its brim, and asked, “If it’s not <em> your </em> birthday, and it’s not <em> my </em> birthday… You never said if you had a reason to bake a pie, but you have one, don’t you?” Mr. Hero was the kind of guy who had a reason behind everything he did, even if he didn’t think a lot about it before he did it.</p><p>“Uh, yeah.” Link crammed his mouth full of berries and cream and chewed slowly. Ravio watched surprise, delight, and pride flit across his face, as well as the return of a light blush to his cheeks, as he waited for a satisfactory answer. Finally, in the time it took for Ravio to take three bites of his own piece of pie, Link spoke. “I made it for you.”</p><p>“Me?” The Lorulean couldn’t have been more surprised if he said it was for Yuga. “But-but why?” If anything, Ravio should be making an entire bakery’s worth of pies for Mr. Hero. He owed him that much, if not more.</p><p>“Dunno,” Link replied, and ate another enormous bite, keeping his eyes trained on his companion while he did so. </p><p>Ravio knew that look. His flat-eyed stare was a sign that the merchant should feel lucky that he had spoken at all, and now the topic of conversation had irrevocably closed, but he couldn’t let Mr. Hero have the last word. “It’s my salesman’s charm, isn’t it? Or the fact that I’m the best roommate you’ve ever had? I know!” He twirled his fork thoughtfully in the air. “You were overcome with gratitude for the discount I gave you the other week on the bombs? Say no more, buddy, I value your generous gesture!” Link laughed, spraying crumbs across the table, but he didn’t volunteer any more information. “I’m really glad you picked the berries, Mr. Hero,” Ravio continued, licking the sticky, sweetened juice off his fork. “And I’m extra super glad you survived long enough to bake me a pie with them.” It was a decent first attempt, as well. Though the crust’s texture was inconsistent from bite to bite, it held together under the weight of the filling. Every unsmashed berry was at the peak of ripeness, and their fragrant sweetness danced across his tongue. Link didn't need to explain further. It was a pie baked with love. “I’m not sure how I’m going to make this up to you, but I’m going to try!”</p><p>The ears of Ravio’s hood wiggled in appreciation, Link’s blush grew a shade deeper, and the two young men finished their snack in friendly silence.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments mean a lot to me, and I'd love to hear what you thought of this story!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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